Bug or insect repellent for personal use has been historically delivered in a number of different ways. For example, it may be sprayed onto one's skin, sprayed into one's immediate environment, and/or sprayed onto one's clothing. The bug repellent solution is typically volatile so that vapors are emitted which encourage bugs to stay away from one's body.
Longevity of protection for a bug repellent delivered in this manner has always been a problem, however. More recently, absorbent substrates saturated with volatile solutions of bug repellent, made in the form of patches, have been available for application to clothing. When such patches have a barrier material between the substrate and a target surface, such as the user's clothing, greater volumes of solution may be safely used. As a result, such patches may be designed to provide a longer lasting bug repellent.
Any patch containing a volatile solution must be contained in a package which offers a barrier to vaporization of the solution prior to application of the patch. Peelable packages made of barrier films are well known in the art for this purpose. Besides the function of containing the volatile solution prior to use, we have discovered another important consideration for a bug repellent patch package. That is, application of the patch to a target surface should not involve direct user contact with the substrate or solution because of the potentially irritating effect of the solution. Chemicals may be absorbed into one's skin or transferred from a finger surface into one's mouth or eyes, for example, if one touches such a patch.
What has been missing is a package for containing a potentially irritating solution-impregnated patch, such as for bug repellents, which enables the user to apply the patch to a target surface without contacting the patch.